Heavyweight contender Tomasz Adamek will return to action on Sept. 8 at the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J., against an opponent to be determined, but a rematch with Eddie Chambers is off the table for now due to an injury.

Adamek, a former cruiserweight and light heavyweight world champion, claimed a 12-round unanimous decision against Chambers, a former heavyweight title challenger, on June 16 in a competitive fight that many believed Chambers deserved to win.

However, the possibility of an immediate rematch went away when Chambers was diagnosed with a torn tendon in his left biceps that will keep him out of action for at least two months.

It was clear that Chambers had suffered some sort of injury to his arm in the first round, and he did not use his left hand very much for the rest of the fight.
Now, Chambers has his diagnosis and is headed for surgery.

"At the end of the first round, I felt something rip," Chambers said Thursday. "I remember thinking, 'Hey, that didn't feel right.' It turns out that I tore a tendon that connects my bicep to the bone. I am having surgery on Monday to repair that.

"Once I have the surgery, I will do physical therapy for about two months. I will keep in shape physically, you know, running, and anything that doesn't require the upper body, etc., just to stay in shape and to stay ready so that once I get back it's not going to take as long to get ready for fighting. I want to get back into a fight as soon as I possibly can after that."

Adamek (46-2, 28 KOs), a Poland native who lives in Jersey City, N.J., has developed a strong fan following in Newark, where he has drawn fans to the Prudential Center -- which was also site of the fight with Chambers (36-3, 18 KOs) -- from the sizable Polish community in the region.

However, for the Sept. 8 fight, there is a twist. Instead of the card taking place at night, it will take place on a Saturday afternoon in order to accommodate a live prime-time pay-per-view broadcast in Poland, where Adamek is the most popular fighter in the country.

The first pay-per-view in Polish history took place last fall -- Adamek's 10th-round knockout loss in Wroclaw, Poland, in a heavyweight title fight against Vitali Klitschko.

Kathy Duva of Main Events, which co-promotes Adamek with Ziggy Rozalski, said Adamek wanted to have his next fight in Newark, so by going in the afternoon for Polish TV purposes he could accomplish his goals of fighting again in Newark and also generating substantial revenue from Polish TV.

Main Events has not made an American television deal for the September bout. It could wind up being distributed as an independent pay-per-view, although the bulk of the revenue will come from Poland's pay-per-view.

"Tomasz wanted to stay active and we wanted to try out the pay-per-view in Poland again," Duva said. "We discussed with Ziggy and Tomasz about trying to do it for the June 16 fight, but that fight was on NBC (Sports Net) in the United States (at night), which is like 4 or 5 in the morning in Poland, so that didn't work for a pay-per-view over there.

"So we decided it might be worth trying to do one of these shows with Tomasz in Newark in the afternoon. He wants to fight in the U.S. and work at rebuilding his audience here."

Duva said that should everything go well for Adamek on Sept. 8, he would fight again in December, also likely in the United States.